Peter Espeut | A deficit of critical thinking

One of the assumptions in any education system is that previous generations discovered knowledge so useful and important that it should be passed on to succeeding generations in a formal way. This knowledge is then included in curricula, and makes its way into required textbooks. As new knowledge areas emerge they may be included, and other subjects may be dropped.

When I went to high school I was taught Latin, held to be important in an appreciation of English, Spanish, and other languages derived from it. My alma mater still teaches Latin, but few other Jamaican schools do. Almost all high schools today teach information technology, unheard of in my school days.

“Why must we learn algebra, trigonometry, and calculus?”, some young people I know ask. “We will never use them in life or work”. “How do you know?”, I answer; “What will you become in life?”

But the real answer to their question is that mathematics, a branch of logic, teaches us to think and reason. If we can solve quadratic equations, and master the theorem of Pythagoras, we just might be able to figure out how to match our water supply with increasing population.

And the logic of mathematics opens us up to the mysteries of physics and chemistry and land surveying and engineering and computer programming and so much else.

If our education system must teach the young critical thinking and problem-solving, then mathematics is the obvious place to start.

PERFORM THE WORST IN MATH

But examination results show that mathematics is probably the subject in which our students perform the worst! And we know this to be as true of teachers as it is of students. Send a primary school teacher weak in math to teach the young, and more likely than not they will perform poorly; dislike of mathematics can spread as fast as a virus, and may be harder to eradicate.

Some students say they don’t “like” mathematics probably because neither they nor their teachers are comfortable with critical thinking. Why is this not addressed in the ongoing professional development of teachers? It does not always have to be formal; logic puzzles, syllogisms and other such games are fun, and do develop our ability to think critically; find-a-word does not!

Make no mistake: adding two and two to make four is not just a mathematical exercise. It also has to do with how we deal with matters environmental and matters religious.

If forested mountains are watersheds which trap water, and, for example, you dig down the watershed of the Rio Bueno to extract bauxite, won’t you expect the water flow in the river to be affected? Poor industrial practices and counterfeit “development” are damaging our natural environment and are having negative impacts on our climate; clearly our policymakers in Parliament and the public service – and our industrialists – either suffer a serious deficit of critical thinking or choose to suppress it when making investment decisions.

Some fundamentalist Christians (including pastors) act as if when it comes to religion, they must suspend critical thinking. Faith is not opposed to reason; in fact, theology is faith seeking understanding – the application of philosophy to revealed truth. If the Bible appears to contradict itself – and there are multiple dozens of instances of that – then the response is not blind faith contrary to reason. The author of wisdom does not ask his followers to accept nonsense, but to use the gift of reason he gives to come to a deeper understanding of his message.

LAZY INTELLECT

An unreasoning blind faith cannot apprehend or comprehend the divine intelligence. A lazy intellect refuses to pursue truth where a little effort would yield results.

Many moderns accept only the scientific method as the way to truth. In their ignorance they deny themselves the truth that comes through pure reason and insight. A study of pre-Christian philosophical thought might make religious ideas much more intelligible.

And this brings me back to where I began: one of the assumptions in any education system is that previous generations discovered knowledge so useful and important that it should be passed on to succeeding generations in a formal way. We need to do more thinking about thinking, about how we know, about how we know that we know, and how we know that what we know is valid. This field of study (called epistemology) helps us separate knowledge from belief, and helps us to appreciate scepticism, and to deal with it.

We don’t have to start from scratch; we can benefit from the thought and wisdom of persons brighter than ourselves who have lived and written stuff over the last thousands of years. No one is asking us to blindly accept what has gone before; we must learn how to reason (logic), and then go over it all and validate it for ourselves. This is what education is all about.

This is what is so attractive about the natural sciences: that in the laboratory you can do experiments that support and confirm scientific theory. We can do the same with religious wisdom in the laboratory of our minds.

This approach to religion which is not contradictory to philosophy will expose the foolishness of the Kevin Smiths and the many other charlatans operating backyard “churches” in Jamaica. Religious fundamentalism – which denies contradictions rather than resolves them – gives religion a bad name, and turns sensible people off.

My alma mater teaches philosophy to its senior students. This subject matter needs to be introduced much earlier in the secondary curriculum, and become a CXC subject. All schools owned and operated by traditional Christian denominations should teach philosophy. It will improve the religious landscape, and reduce political tomfoolery.

The Rev Peter Espeut is Dean of Studies at St Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com